


Paparazzo, Please

by rea_of_sunshine



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood, Drug Abuse, Famous Richie Tozier, Fluff and Angst, Gay Richie Tozier, M/M, Mutual Pining, Paparazzi, Photographer Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier Has Self-Esteem Issues, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:35:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24382159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rea_of_sunshine/pseuds/rea_of_sunshine
Summary: Eddie is leaning around the corner, looking back the way Richiehadbeen walking two minutes earlier, his camera strapped around his neck. Richie whips out his own camera—he managed to fill two separate disposable cameras with photos of Eddie trying to take photos of him before he upgraded to a polaroid for the instant gratification—and raises it.They’ve made a game of this, each trying to catch the other unawares, and Eddie’s better at it, just because it’s his job. And more, Richie’s photos are never as artistic or beautiful as the ones Eddie takes of him, but he likes them just the same, especially the ones where he actually manages to catch Eddie by surprise, that half-grin sprouting, the impressed eyebrows, camera mid-poise by his chest.It's fun.Or, Eddie is Richie's first and favorite paparazzo.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 60
Kudos: 370





	Paparazzo, Please

**Author's Note:**

> DO I HAVE A LONG-FIC THAT I NEED TO BE FINISHING??? YES!!! DID I GET STRUCK BY THIS IDEA AT 5AM AND DECIDE THAT THE LONG-FIC COULD WAIT??? ALSO YES!!!
> 
> Anyway, shout-out to my bud and beta, [Mere_Mortifer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mere_Mortifer/pseuds/Mere_Mortifer), for not letting Eddie essentially being a stalker get weird. She rocks. 
> 
> Please check the tags. Richie-babe's struggling in this.

It’s 2001, and Richie’s leaving the club after a—roaringly successful, if you ask him—show, a little drunk, a lot happy, tugging his liquor-stained leather jacket tighter around him against the Chicago night wind and tilting his head back towards the sky.

When he hears the sharp shutter of a camera in the bushes, he freezes. Some distant part of his brain tells him that it’s the paparazzi, teeth bared, angling to get the worst shot possible with every photo, and he knows that he should be pissed off. After all, he’d just finished a great show, every one of his jokes had landed perfectly, and the club manager told him that she’d heard rumors of an agent circling the joint looking for him, and then there were the paps to ruin it all, trying to steal his happiness away with a photo of him looking wide-eyed and sweaty enough that it wouldn’t take much to convince the public he’d been on an all-night Molly trip. 

But when the camera shuttered again, the grin that tore through him was like a freight train. He had a pap. His first pap! It was like losing his first tooth, the tooth of his normal, un-famous life falling out to leave his mouth riddled with the holes of bigger and better things. 

Sure, now that he had his first paparazzi, he’d probably have to make some sacrifices, like not getting the mail in his underwear anymore or puking his guts out in the streets after making the rookie mistake of having a few beers, taking four (five? six?) shots, and then going back to beers. 

But he just had a great fucking show, and there are agents circling him, and _now_ apparently, he’s famous enough to have a camera hiding in the bushes. 

Before he can think better of it, he digs out the disposable camera his mom gave him— _I can’t be there for your shows, honey, but I want to pretend that I am_ —and takes a picture of the guy taking a picture of him. 

The camera drops a fraction.

“Did—did you just take a picture of me?” the pap asks. He still has the camera halfway up, covering the bottom half of his face, but Richie can see the gleam of his dark eyes in the light spilling off the club. 

Richie just grins back. 

“You’re my first paparazzi,” he says, shrugging. 

The camera drops again, resting just under the guy’s chin so that Richie has a perfect view of his mouth trying to frown and smile at the same time. 

“Paparazzo,” the guy says after a minute. 

“What?”

“Paparazzo, singular.” 

“ _Paparazzo_ , then,” Richie concedes, still smiling. 

The wind rips up again and through him, and Richie hunches his shoulders. He’s only been in Chicago a few years, and it’s already too cold for his blood. He doesn’t know how the guy crouched down in the bushes isn’t freezing his balls off in nothing but a sweatshirt and a blue baseball cap. 

“Aren’t you cold, man?” Richie asks him, and the guy’s eyebrows knit together. 

“I’ve got insulated layers,” he answers shortly.

“Still.” They stare at each other for a minute longer, the wind turning the tips of Richie’s fingers and nose icy, and he knows he should probably just leave, but also…he doesn’t really want to? 

He sways on his feet for a second, shoves his glasses up his nose, and waits for the guy to say something else. He doesn’t, just stares at Richie like he’s a dumbass, and maybe he is. 

“So, what’s your name?” Richie asks, still standing there in the club doorway. A couple comes out and gives him joint dirty looks as they veer wide to go around him, and even though he’s standing there after _his_ show, talking to his first paparazzi— _paparazzo_ , whatever—it’s good to see that some things never change. 

“Why are you talking to me?” the guy in the bushes asks, and if he didn’t look so genuinely confused, Richie might believe the guy was kind of an asshole. (Not that Richie minds that. He likes a guy with a bit of fire.) (Not that he’d admit to liking guys, especially not to the paparazzi or the tabloids signing their checks.) 

Richie raises a shoulder, feeling lame even in spite of the night’s events. 

“You’re my first paparazzi. Shit, paparazzo, whatever.”

The guy considers him for a long moment. 

“I’m Richie,” he says when the guy doesn’t answer. He thinks about offering his hand out to shake, but that seems weird even to him. 

“Yeah, I know who you are. That’s why I’m taking pictures of you, man,” the guy answers. 

“Heh. Oh, right,” Richie says. He rubs at the back of his neck, considering. Then, he decides, fuck it. “Why are you taking pictures of me, anyway? I’m no one.” 

For the first time that night, he sees the fighting frown-smile combo break into what is definitely more of a smile than a frown. 

“Maybe not yet,” he says. “But you will be.” 

The answer takes Richie by surprise. It’s been a long time since someone sounded so confident in him, and it’s almost grossly touching. Richie swallows hard. 

“Oh,” he says, when he can. “Thanks, man.” He scrubs another hand down the back of his neck, torn between feeling embarrassed about the flush he can feel creeping up it and being glad his fingers have that extra little bit of warmth. 

The guy raises his camera again, faster than Richie can scrub the bashful look off his face, and snaps a picture. Richie blinks against the flash. 

“What was that for?” he asks, and when the camera drops back by the guy’s chin, the frown-smile is definitely a smile. A smug, smarmy one, and Richie’s stomach flips twice before it settles deep in that uncomfortable chasm of knowing someone you suddenly find attractive is _looking_ at you. Really, really looking. 

The pap raises a shoulder. 

“You’re cute when you blush.” 

Richie nearly chokes. He tries not to bluster, and after a few, half-swallowed words, he manages to croak out, “I’m not like that.” 

You know, like a liar. 

The grin on the cameraman’s face turns wolfish. 

“Maybe not yet,” he says again. “But you will be.” 

It takes everything in Richie’s willpower not to haul whole-sale ass away. He does stumble down a few steps and nearly jumps out of his skin when another person tries to exit the club around him. 

The pap is still crouched in the bushes, grinning. 

“I’ve gotta go,” Richie says. “I’ll, uh, I’ll see you around, yeah?” 

Richie’s already half-running away when he hears the guy call back. 

“I guarantee that I’ll see you first.” 

Richie doesn’t know if he’s being hit on or threatened, but neither are particularly fun for him, even though the guy with the camera is cute as shit. He leaves quickly.

* * *

It’s 2003, and Richie’s gained an agent and a core following, and he’s living his best life staggering from comedy club to comedy club and giving blowjobs to cute guys in seedy bar bathrooms where the lighting is too low to recognize exactly who he is.

Eddie’s always there. That’s his first pap’s name, Eddie. He’s got a handful of others now, but none are as persistent or as capable (or as cute) as Eddie. The next time he caught up with Richie—a few weeks after that embarrassing first encounter that ended with an endearingly artistic picture of him blushing like a schoolgirl making its rounds in the local tabloids—Richie managed to snag his name. 

(“What’s it matter what my name is?” Eddie had shouted up at him from the street below his apartment, grinning, camera raised.

Richie was in his underwear and pretending he wasn’t buzzing-electric from spotting the pap down below. It was still weird, weird that he had a paparazzo, weird that he was standing there in his underwear unconcerned, weird that, in spite of it all, he still found the cameraman incredibly cute. 

“If you’re gonna be following me around like a lost puppy, I think it’s only fair that I know your name,” Richie had called back. 

“Fuck you, I’m not a lost puppy!” 

“Tell that to your sad puppy eyes!” Richie chortled back to him. The guy’s eyes danced. 

A few days later, there was a shot of him grinning down, arms spread over his balcony rail, backlit by his porchlight and the early morning sun.)

He’s walking downtown, now, when he spots the familiar blue baseball cap dip around a corner up ahead. He grins. It’s 2003, he’s mildly famous, and there’s a cute man at every corner hiding to snap a photo of him.

He glances down the street quickly before jogging across and tucking into an alley. He creeps down it over greasy pizza boxes and street rats until he’s able to pop out the other end and circle back to Eddie. 

The man is leaning around the corner, looking back the way Richie _had_ been walking two minutes earlier, his camera strapped around his neck. Richie whips out his own camera—he managed to fill two separate disposable cameras with photos of Eddie trying to take photos of him before he upgraded to a polaroid for the instant gratification—and raises it. 

They’ve made a game of this, each trying to catch the other unawares, and Eddie’s better at it, just because it’s his job. And more, Richie’s photos are never as artistic or beautiful as the ones Eddie takes of him, but he likes them just the same, especially the ones where he actually manages to catch Eddie by surprise, that half-grin sprouting, the impressed eyebrows, camera mid-poise by his chest. 

It’s fun. 

“Gotcha!” Richie shouts, and Eddie leaps around, just as Richie snaps the photo. It will absolutely be a blurry mess, but he doesn’t care. It prints, and Richie takes it out to shake and grins victoriously. 

“Fuck!” Eddie groans, letting the camera hang once again around his neck. 

Richie giggles as he digs a pen out of his pocket and scrawls, _ **Eds in a dirty alley, October 2003**_ , along the bottom. 

“I wasn’t even doing anything fun," Richie says, tucking the photo into his jacket pocket. "Why are you trying to get a sultry picture of me picking up my dry cleaning?” 

Eddie raises a skeptical eyebrow as he looks Richie up and down. 

“You go to a dry cleaner?” 

“Fuck you!” 

Eddie snorts. 

“I thought you had a big show today,” Eddie says, furrowing his brow. 

Richie isn’t sure if he’s just trying to make conversation or is answering his question about why he’s following him, but either way, Richie appreciates it. 

“Nah, man, that’s tonight.” Richie eyes Eddie for a moment, considering. “Are you coming?” 

Eddie lets out a small smile. 

“Don’t I always?” 

“I mean, yeah, but you’re always outside. You could come in and watch.” Richie squirms as he says it. It feels like there’s a line that he’s toeing, and his heart-rate rises in the lingering offer and falls as Eddie shakes his head. 

“You look better in natural light,” he says, one corner of his mouth raised. Then, to emphasize his point, he raises his camera and snaps a picture of Richie standing there looking—he’s sure—dumbstruck. 

“Right,” Richie murmurs after a beat. “Well, I’ll see you, Eds.”

“I’ll see you first,” he answers, smiling.

* * *

It’s 2007, and Richie’s a perfectly average level of famous, and he tells himself that it’s not because his agent has finally talked him into a ghostwriter who writes shitty jokes that Richie tells shittily to the shitty people who laugh at them. He’s got money and fans and a slew of paparazzi that scream his name as he locks the front door of his big, stupid house, and he’s happy, damnit. He’s happy. 

He gets in his big, stupid expensive car, and drives the big, stupid streets of Chicago, and winds up in a big, stupid townhouse with a bunch of big, stupid names that he doesn’t fucking care about and snorts their coke because they want him to, and because he wants to, and because he’s happy, damnit. 

He stumbles out of the party a few hours later and trips over the curb by his car, barely managing to catch himself before eating the pavement. 

“Rich,” he hears, soft, a few feet away, and when he turns, Eddie’s standing there in the streetlight, his camera slung around his neck but resting against his sternum. Richie wants to puke, and his keys fall out of his hand. 

“The fuck do _you_ want?” Richie snaps, swaying. 

It’s not Eddie’s fault. He knows that. He knows that, but Eddie told him he’d be someone someday, and now he fucking is, and he feels so fucking empty inside that it’s like someone has zipped him up inside out in his skin and there’s just nothing but brittle air. Richie closes his eyes tight, like that could stop the sawing, aching inside of him. 

“Just take your shot, Eddie,” Richie says. “Let the whole world see what a useless fuck-up I am, and leave me the hell alone.”

“You’re not a useless fuck-up,” Eddie answers, and it feels like a punch to the gut.

Richie has to choke down tears. 

“Just take your shot, man,” he says, tilting his head up towards the black sky. He fucking misses the stars. 

“Let me drive you home, Rich,” Eddie says, still soft. 

“Why? You need a shot of me hunched over the toilet bowl sobbing? You’d make good money off that one.” Richie knows his voice is venom, and if the world would stop spinning, stop rumbling beneath him just long enough for him to catch his fucking breath, he might be bothered to give a damn. 

Eddie’s face falls. 

“You know I wouldn’t do that to you.” 

“Do I?” Richie snaps back. “No one else seems to have a problem making me wish I was fucking dead.” 

As soon as he says it, Eddie sucks in a sharp breath, and Richie leans forward on his car, bracketing his arms over the roof. 

“Richie,” Eddie breathes, but Richie’s already shaking his head. 

“I didn’t mean that,” he says. And he doesn’t. Most of the time. “I’m fine.” 

“You know that I’ve only ever supported you, Richie,” Eddie says, his voice soft like he’s afraid Richie might snap again, and sad, so, so fucking sad. Richie hates himself even more. 

“I know,” Richie says. He feels like all the life has drained out of him, all the fight, all the anger and rawness, and he’s just fucking exhausted. 

“Let me drive you home,” Eddie says again. “Please.” 

Richie rolls his head to the side and sees Eddie standing there in the streetlights, one hand stretched out towards Richie, the other gripping the strap of his camera. His eyes…Richie loves his eyes. 

“Yeah, alright,” Richie says. He starts to stoop for his keys, but Eddie’s already there, scooping them up and unlocking the doors. Richie falls inside the passenger seat and leans his head against the window. 

They don’t talk on the drive, and Richie’s not altogether convinced that he manages to stay awake for the whole of it. Everything’s so big and so fuzzy, and the smell of Eddie is warm and everywhere around him. 

Soon enough, Eddie’s parking in Richie’s driveway and stepping around to help haul Richie out of his car. He braces for the same rush of flashing lights and people shouting his name as he left the house in that morning, but there’s just Eddie in his ballcap, his camera resting forgotten on Richie’s middle console. 

“Where is everyone?” Richie asks. He knows he’s slurring a little, but such is life. 

Eddie’s grip around his waist tightens. 

“I told them to fuck off,” he says darkly, and Richie really, really wants to fucking kiss him. He’s almost drunk enough, almost fucked up enough to actually do it. _Almost_. 

“Thanks, Eds,” Richie says as they hobble up the front steps. 

He might only be almost drunk enough to kiss him, but he’s plenty drunk enough to ask him to stay, after Eddie tucks him into bed and rolls him to his side in case he pukes, complete with a glass of water and a couple aspirin on the bedside table. 

He catches Eddie’s wrist. 

“Stay,” he says into the dark of his room. 

“I shouldn’t,” Eddie whispers back. 

“Please,” Richie answers. “There’s a guest room down the hall. Sheets are clean.” (He thinks.) 

“I shouldn’t,” Eddie says again.

“Please.” 

Eddie stands there, staring at him, then nods softly. 

“Alright.” 

The next morning, Richie feels like a steamroller has flattened him to his bed. The house is quiet, and there’s a piece of paper leaned against the glass of water Eddie left him the night before. 

Fuck, _Eddie_.

Richie groans and snatches the paper and his glasses up. He made a fool of himself, an ass, probably made Eddie think he needed to be put on suicide watch, and Eddie _still_ brought him home and made sure no one died. 

When he gets his glasses shoved onto his face, he sees that the paper he’s holding isn’t actually a paper, but a photograph, a polaroid. It’s Richie curled up in bed, drool running down his chin—he swipes at the now-crusty trail, irritated—with two blunt fingertips breaking up the frame, skillfully positioned to look like Richie’s about to be squished by them. There’s a scrawl of handwriting in the blank space beneath. 

**Gotcha. Sorry I had to leave. Wanted to be gone before the lesser paps showed up. This is the only picture I took, scout’s honor. I’ll see you.**

Richie drops back down onto the pillow, mapping out the whorls of Eddie’s fingertips and hating himself. 

When he finally convinces himself to brave crawling out of bed, he vomits on the floor, cleans it as thoroughly as half-assing can clean something, and tucks the polaroid Eddie took of him into the shoebox he’s labeled _Eds_. There are dozens of photos in there, Eddie with the camera half-raised, across the street, clouded by bushes or post boxes or even standing right out in the open. He’s everywhere, and he’s the only face Richie consistently finds himself searching for when he leaves his house. 

He stops going to those parties, doesn’t touch the drugs, and tries to slow down on the drinking. Some days are better than others for that particular endeavor, but in return, he sees photos of himself sucking down coffee on his porch in his underwear instead of looking strung out and broken on the streets. 

He can always pick Eddie’s pictures out in the tabloids. There’s something soft about how Richie’s framed in all of them. Even when he’s halfway scratching his ass—the dick—he has to admit that Eddie’s got an eye for this kind of thing. 

And he keeps his promise. He never, ever casts Richie in a bad light.

* * *

It’s 2011, and Richie’s getting _old_ , man. The crowds at his shows just keep getting younger and younger, and he feels like a grade-A dickbag perpetuating the kind of shit he does in his routine, but he’s got a writer, and his own shit’s not good enough anymore, if it ever was, and Richie’s too tired from trying to stay off the hard drugs all the time to bitch about it. 

He’s just tired. And lonely. Maybe that’s what getting old means. 

He’s at some bar in Logan Square, far enough away and artsy enough that he feels like none of his usual crowd will be there to recognize him while he underhandedly hits on the cute guy to his left. 

The guy grins at him, and it’s all teeth, and Richie may be dumb, but he’s not fucking stupid. It’s on. 

God, he needs this. He likes bathroom blowjobs as much as the next guy, but he needs this, and he needs it somewhere with lube and condoms and enough room to actually breathe through the residual gay-panic that lingers when he bottoms. 

“You wanna go back to yours?” Richie yells in his ear over the pounding music. The guy shakes his head. 

“Roommates.” 

Well, shit. Shit. Fuck, Richie needs this. He doesn’t bring guys back to his place, as a rule, just because there’s always a slew of seedy photographers—and Eddie, sometimes, though lately, he’s taken to showing his skill by appearing where lesser paps can’t find him—and because it’s generally a bad idea for a famous person to bring someone home for a hookup. 

He halfway considers just ditching this guy and finding someone else without roommates who’ll plow him into tomorrow, but the guy’s looking at him with these big, chocolatey eyes that are making Richie’s skin simmer, and Richie wants him. 

“Okay,” Richie says. “Okay, hang on.” He whips out his phone and texts his PR person, Shelly. 

_Yo, is there anyway you can get the paps off my yard? I’m trying to get laid._

He doesn’t expect his phone to buzz again before he even gets it shoved back into his pocket, but it does, and the message says, _You’ll be at the comedy club in fifteen_ , which Richie knows means that that’s what she’s leaked to the paps, and that his yard will be entirely clear in approximately twenty-three minutes. 

He grins and turns back to the guy. 

“Let’s go.” 

When they make it to Richie’s house, the yard is blessedly empty, and Richie promises to give Shelly a big fat bonus for her efforts as he slides his car into the garage and closes it behind them. The guy—Richie really should learn his name—gives an impressed whistle. 

“You must be loaded, man,” he says, and every time he opens his mouth, the illusion of his big, brown eyes is shattered, so Richie just strides over to him and kisses him. It’s not a great kiss, but Richie’s not really here to be picky. He just leads the guy backwards into his house and flicks on the lights so they don’t trip. 

They’re in the kitchen, and Richie’s hands are dipping under the guy’s shirt, and he keeps opening his eyes and being surprised who’s kissing him back. He realizes with a jolt that he brought an Eddie-look-a-like into his home and is hungrily pawing at every inch of skin afforded to him. 

Then, almost like magic, or some twisted, fucked up karma, there’s movement in his peripherals, and there’s Eddie in his blue ball cap, standing outside of the window, wide eyed, camera covering the open hang of his jaw. 

Richie’s frozen, his hands clamped around the guy’s hips, pressed together chest to ankle, his lips nipping at Richie’s neck. Compromised. 

And before he can well and truly panic about it, movement three feet to Eddie’s right catches his eye, and there’s a second camera on him, and Richie feels like he can hear the _snap_ of the shutter through the walls, the doors, his entire body. 

He shoves the guy clinging to him away just as Eddie lunges for the camera attached to the second pap. 

“What the fuck!” his hook-up hisses, but Richie’s yelling Eddie’s name and tearing out of the front door. 

When he gets there, Eddie’s scrambling in the grass with the other paparazzo, yelling. 

“—fucker, give me the camera!” he shouts, but the guy’s got him pinned and brings a sharp fist down into his face before Richie yanks him off. 

The unknown pap lands hard, but the camera, still tight in his grasp, looks entirely unscathed, and he fucking _books it_ off Richie’s lawn. 

Richie has half a mind to chase after him, but then he remembers the sickening crack Eddie’s face made against the punch, so he watches the guy disappear into the night while trying to swallow down the bile swelling up in his throat. 

“I’m so sorry, Richie,” Eddie says from the ground. Richie swallows one more time, just for good measure, then looks down. 

Eddie’s sitting up on his elbow, one hand clutched to his face while blood streams down around his fingers. 

“Shit,” Richie says, kneeling beside him. “Here, let me see.” 

Eddie warily moves his hand, and blood gushes down his face. His nose is set sideways on his face. 

“Your nose is broken,” Richie says, still swallowing bile. Eddie grimaces. 

“Figures,” he says, then Richie watches in horror as Eddie feels around with bloody fingers and yanks it back into place. “Fuck!” Eddie shouts once it’s set. 

Richie sits back on his heels. 

“I’m really sorry, Richie,” Eddie says again after a moment. “I tried to stop him. If I had known you were bringing someone home with you, I would never have stayed, and that dick would have left.” 

Richie shook his head. 

“It’s not your fault, Eds.” 

“Still.” 

Richie feels his lip start to quiver, and he sighs. 

“So,” he hears a new voice call, and when Richie glances over, it’s his date standing on the porch with his shirt tucked back into place. “I’m gonna go,” he says, and Richie stifles a roll of his eyes.

“Yeah, that’s probably for the best,” Richie answers. 

* * *

It’s 2011, and Richie’s got Eddie sitting on his couch with a cup of mediocre coffee and two slowly blackening eyes and a trail of blood down the front of his shirt. He lost his baseball cap somewhere in the yard, so the full wave of his dark hair is on full display. 

Richie’s sitting on the coffee table across from him, their knees barely touching as Richie hangs his head. He’s already texted Shelly, and Shelly has already called to tell him that the most they can do at this point is damage control. She tells him he should come out on his own terms, before the tabloids hit, but nothing about this feels like it’s “on his own terms”. 

“What do I do, man?” he asks Eddie and tries not to jump when Eddie’s hand lands soft on his shoulder and squeezes. Richie looks up. Even among the purple of fresh-blooming bruises, the brown of his eyes is stunning, deep and warm, and Richie wants nothing more than to dive into them and pretend all this shit isn’t happening. He didn’t even want that guy from the bar. He just wanted Eddie. He’s always just wanted Eddie. 

“This is gonna ruin me,” Richie whispers, and Eddie’s hand tightens on his shoulder. 

“It doesn’t have to,” Eddie says softly, his thumb rubbing into the cords of muscle at Richie’s neck. 

“What do you mean? Of course it’s gonna. You’ve seen my stuff. I’m the straight bastard who appeals to Drumpf’s American frat boys. It’s bullshit.” 

“But that’s not _you_ , Richie. You don’t even write your own material,” Eddie insists, and Richie scoffs, leaning back and swiping a hand down his face. 

“Oh, sure. Kick me when I’m down, why don’t you,” Richie says. 

“ _No,_ shut up for a second. That’s what I’m telling you. Richie, that guy, this image you’ve created, it’s not you. Maybe this could be an opportunity for you to rebrand and get back to who you are.”

Eddie’s staring at him so earnestly, so openly, that Richie can’t take it. A tear rolls down his cheek, and he lets it fall. 

“What if who I am isn’t good enough, Eds?” he whispers. 

Eddie gives him a sad smile. 

“Richie, I’ve been here with you from the beginning, remember? I was watching you back when you were still doing improv with that comedy group.” 

Richie has to push down another hard lump in his throat before he can speak, and he goes right for the knee jerk defense of _say something funny, you’re spiraling uncontrollably through emotionally vulnerable territory right now_.

“Somehow you manage to be both super inspiring and super creepy at the same time,” he croaks. He knows it lands wrong, but Eddie huffs a laugh anyway. 

“Shut up. It wasn’t creepy. I was a fan, not a paparazzo.” The flush crawling up Eddie’s cheeks mingles deliciously with the purple around his eyes, and Richie’s eyes follow it hungrily. Eddie’s voice is soft when he speaks again. “You’re funny, Richie. _You_ are, not some ghostwriter with bad taste.” 

“Eds,” Richie breathes. Eddie hums softly, lips pursed, and then, before he can stop himself, Richie’s leaning in. 

And just as fast, Eddie’s leaning away. 

“Rich, wait,” he says and lays a soft hand back on his shoulder. 

Richie freezes, heart thudding. 

When he stands abruptly, he nearly knocks Eddie’s coffee out of his hand. 

“Oh my God, I can’t believe I just tried to kiss you,” he says, pacing a quick, tight circle before stalking over to the liquor cabinet and tearing it open. It’s mostly dry. _Richie_ has been mostly dry for the better part of two years, but Christ, if ever there was a night that he needs a drink, it’s this fucking night. 

He yanks up the bourbon and a tumbler before sloshing a few fingers down into it. He tips the whole thing back then pours another. 

Eddie’s at his side. 

“It’s not that I’m not interested,” he says softly, pressing a hand against the small of Richie’s back, and Richie tears away. 

“No, I get it,” Richie says, even though he doesn’t, even though he feels like he’s being lit on fire inside. He just needs this conversation to fucking end and for this night to fucking end and for it all to be a dark spec in the hazy parts of his mind for the rest of eternity. Richie raises his glass towards the door. “Goodnight,” he says stiffly. 

Eddie’s shoulders fall. 

“Richie, come on,” he says, but Richie just shakes his head. 

“Thanks for everything you did tonight, Eddie, really, but I’ve got a fucking mess to clean up.” 

He means the thank you sincerely, but his voice is so sharp and bitter, and Eddie recoils so quickly, that he knows it sounds like he blames him. 

Richie doesn’t bother correcting the assumption. He just watches as Eddie lays his coffee down on the bar and moves towards the door. 

“I’m so sorry,” he says again, and then he’s picking his camera up off the counter and slipping out. 

Richie finishes his drink and hurls the glass at the wall. 

“Fuck!” he screams at the top of his lungs, a boom of thunder over the glass tinkling to a stop on the floor. 

Then, he calls Shelly again.

* * *

It’s 2012, and Richie is _out_ , and it was _bad_ for a while, and he’s moved from Chicago to LA away from the cold of it all, and now, he’s…he’s happy, actually. By no means is he perfect and content, but things are better in LA. 

The move is a fresh start, all around, and his name—soiled though it may be—still holds enough clout that establishing himself—actually, truly himself—out in LA goes much faster than it had in Chicago. By the time he’s closed on his house by the water, he has a new agent who wants to watch him, actually, truly him, succeed, and she’s the first person since Eddie who really believed in him. 

He didn’t see Eddie again before it all got bad, and certainly not since it’s gotten somewhere close to good. The thought scrapes through him every time he closes the curtains in his living room to keep the paps out. The new paparazzi aren’t near as much fun, and he doesn’t want to fill shoebox after shoebox with badly-timed photos of them. He doesn’t even bother to learn their names, and he misses Eddie like a limb. 

Once the sting of rejection had worn off, he’d realized that Eddie was trying to be a decent guy by not letting Richie come onto him. Richie had been in a vulnerable place, and it would have been a bad idea, but that hadn’t stopped Richie from acting like a prick. 

He didn’t even get the chance to apologize before he was thrown on the coming-out-crashing-down train, and to make it all worse, in all the nasty tabloids being hurled across the room at him by his old agent, not one photo had held Eddie’s careful frame. Eddie wasn’t even around anymore.

Richie didn’t blame him, but he still missed him. He tries to find him once, a few months after the move, but the effort dies quickly when he realizes that he doesn’t even have Eddie’s last name. They spent ten years together, laughing together and bitching at each other at least three days a week, and he never got Eddie’s last name. He spends a long time trying to come to terms with the fact that he’ll have to sit with Eddie pulsing under his skin like a cyst and move on. 

* * *

It’s 2013, and Richie’s leaving the latest venue somewhere on La Cienega when someone calls his name. He turns, expecting to see some queer kid—braver than he ever was—who missed the signing earlier, and puts on a smile. 

It dies on his lips when he sees Eddie standing there, holding up an old polaroid camera, grinning. A sharp flash illuminates the space between them, and then there’s just Eddie, haloed by light even in the shrinking blackspot of his eyes. 

“Gotcha,” he says. He pulls the photo out and begins shaking it. 

“Eddie,” Richie breathes. He crosses to him in a heartbeat and throws his arms around his shoulders. He feels the camera crushed between them, and he thinks he should be concerned, but then Eddie’s arms are coming up and clutching him, and nothing else matters. 

“You’re a hard man to find these days, Richie Tozier,” Eddie says into Richie’s shoulder. 

Richie chokes out a laugh and pulls away. God, he’s beautiful. He’s beautiful after all this time, and fuck, Richie’s missed him. 

“How long are you in town?” Richie asks. He’s still holding Eddie by the shoulders, so when Eddie ducks his head against the hot blush creeping up his cheeks, Richie doesn’t miss an inch of it. 

“I, uh, I actually live here, now,” he says. 

“No shit!” Richie exclaims, and Eddie nods, still grinning down at his feet. 

“Yeah. I moved here a few weeks ago.” 

“What, not enough ugly mugs in Chicago for you to snap candid photos of?” Richie asks, grinning. Eddie glances back up, and his smile turns softer. 

“You want to get a drink with me? I’d like to show you something,” he says, and it takes a minute for Richie to jump onto the redirection of the conversation, but fuck yeah, Richie’s down. 

“Let’s go,” he says. 

They walk down the strip together, and Richie’s loathe to let Eddie even an arm’s length away from him. He keeps stealing glances in the billboard light, somehow unconvinced that Eddie’s _real_ and that he’s _here_ and that he feels Eddie’s eyes sweeping over him right back. 

They don’t talk much, and even though Richie’s being set on fire by the silence, the air between them feels so charged and so thick that he’s worried what might happen if he speaks. After a few blocks, Eddie points at a bar. 

“Here okay?” he asks, and Richie raises a shoulder. They find a small booth in the back, and despite a few inquisitive looks, they’re mostly left alone. 

“So,” Richie starts once the waitress takes their drink order. “What brought you to LA?” 

Eddie smiles down at his hands then up at Richie. 

“I’m a student.” 

“No shit,” Richie hums, and Eddie nods. 

“Because of you, actually.” 

“Moi?” Richie asks, trying to sound more confident than he feels. Eddie nods again and dips into a backpack Richie just noticed. He pulls out a big binder-type thing—Richie doesn’t fucking know—and passes it over the table. 

Their waitress drops off their drinks and cheese fries, and Richie stares at Eddie. 

“Go on,” he says. He waves at the binder and sips his beer.

Richie flips open the book, and on the first page, it reads, _EDWARD F. KASPBRAK, photography portfolio_. Richie glances up. 

“You’re going to school to be a photographer?” he asks. Part of his brain tells him that’s stupid because Eddie’s already a photographer, but Eddie looks like he just handed Richie a piece of his soul, so he keeps that comment to himself. 

It seems he doesn’t have to though, because Eddie waves another hand and nods. 

“Yeah, I know. I’ve been making money off photography for years, but I wanted to do it right, you know? Not a paparazzo, just a photographer.” 

“That’s great, Eds. I’m so happy for you,” Richie says, and he is. Eddie’s always had an eye for this, an eye for how to take something dark and broken and cast it new and beautiful. Eddie smiles. 

“You inspired me, Richie,” he says. He’s got both hands clenched around his beer, but he’s looking over at Richie like he actually did something more than let his life careen off the tracks and somewhat successfully manage to pick up the pieces. His smile dips. “I watched what the paparazzi did to you, after that night.” 

“Eddie,” Richie says, shaking his head, but Eddie cuts him off.

“No. Don’t make excuses for me. It was my fault, and I know that, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Richie.” 

“Don’t be sorry, Eddie. I did what you told me. I rebranded. I’m just me now, and it’s good. I’m good. I’m really good, man.” 

Eddie’s smile comes back a fraction, but it looks pained. 

“I watched you rebuild it all, Rich, and I knew that I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing. I didn’t want to be anything like those people who made it so difficult for you.”

Richie takes a hand off the portfolio Eddie handed him and sets it against Eddie’s wrist. He wants to say something, but there’s not really anything that feels good enough, so he just scrubs his thumb against Eddie’s pulse. 

“Open it up,” Eddie says after a beat, nodding towards the portfolio. Richie pulls his hand away and flips to the first page. 

It’s two photos side-by-side, both of him outside of the club in Chicago, that first night. He’s got his head tilted back in the first, breathing in the night air with his leather jacket clenched tight around him. His skin is glowing in the soft light from the club, and Eddie made him look ethereal, cloaked in black and blue and white, instead of like he’d been on a Molly bender all night the way he remembers worrying he looked.

The photo beside it is him smiling bashfully down at Eddie, hand clamped around his neck while a blush takes over his face. He remembers Eddie’s comment about that blush, and it looks the focus of the photo just like Eddie said it would. 

Richie’s mouth goes dry. He looks up at Eddie, but Eddie’s looking down at the photo, his face unreadable. He turns to the next page. He’s in a t-shirt and his underwear on his old apartment’s balcony, haloed by light, grinning down at Eddie as he braced on the rail. He flips to the next one, and the next, and they’re all beautiful, all of him, some he’s seen in the tabloids, some he hasn’t, some of him standing under his name on the marquee, some where’s he’s got his own camera raised at Eddie, some where he’s just looking at Eddie, looking so soft and out of focus and obviously smitten that it makes his throat close up. 

“My instructor said that I must really be in love to have a decade’s worth of photos that show you like this,” Eddie murmurs after a long while. 

Richie’s head snaps up. 

“Are you?” Richie asks, hardly trusting himself to get the words out. 

Eddie’s eyes meet his, warm and open and so fucking sure. He nods. 

“Yeah, Rich,” he murmurs. “I think I’ve loved you for a long time.” 

Richie stares at Eddie for a moment, the words ringing around him, and when they finally slot into his brain, one at a time, he lunges across the table and crushes his lips against Eddie’s. It’s hard and messy, and Richie’s halfway certain that he knocked Eddie’s beer straight into his lap and that he’s getting cheese all the fuck over his shirt and that they’re turning some heads across the bar, but he doesn’t care. 

Eddie’s hands are in his hair, and he's tugging him forward, tongue frantic against Richie’s, and it’s everything. It’s everything Richie’s been searching for and then some. 

“Maybe we oughta thank that pap guy who outed me,” Richie says against Eddie’s lips. Eddie nips sharply at Richie’s tongue, and Richie snickers. “I’m just saying,” Richie says, pulling away a fraction. He has to catch his breath when he sees how blown-open wide Eddie’s pupils are, how pink and swollen his lips are. “Look where it landed us.” 

“Fuck no,” Eddie growls, then dips forward and kisses Richie again, softer, but still hungry. Richie is goddamn starved. “If I ever see him again, I’m bashing in his kneecaps.”

* * *

It’s 2015, and Richie’s putting together a photo album for his and Eddie’s anniversary. It starts with the night in 2001, outside of the comedy club, the pictures that Eddie took on the page opposite the one Richie took with his disposable. He weaves their lives together, just like that, page after page of Eddie’s steady hand and Richie’s quick-scrawl polaroids, until the photos become ones of them together, taken by their friends after shows or by strangers in a mountain. 

The last photo isn’t of either of them, or of them together. It’s of the ring now tucked in Richie’s shirt pocket until the perfect moment. 

It’s 2015, and it’s going to be a beautiful anniversary.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s 2016, and Richie’s phone is ringing. The caller ID says, _Derry, ME_.
> 
> JK JK!! Unless...👀👀


End file.
